"Singing is the lowest form of communication"
When griping grief the heart doth wound,
and doleful dumps the mind opresses,
then music, with her silver sound,
with speedy help doth lend redress.
- William Shakespeare
Yeah ok, but why?
Why are some sounds more pleasing than others? Is the explanation scientific, aesthetic, or both? If there did exist a series of sounds that were "perfect" in the ears of the listener, then is there one and only one series? If so, then can't someone write a computer program to estimate this divine noise?
I think it's possible. Not right now or within the next hour or month, but at some point.
There are some obvious basics, however. Music appears to be equal parts unity and repetition, except stating that they're 'equal' may be copping out. What if, to keep the listener's attention and familiarity, the majority of a piece of music must recycle its motifs...? But, on the other hand, to keep from boring the listener, maybe the piece should employ more random elements. I bet studies could be done on this subject. I'd be interested in the results.
Also, when sounds do change, how should they do it? There are 4 properties of sound: pitch, duration, amplitude, and timbre. Should each change at the same time, or maybe one or two at time? I'm sure this should be somewhat random as well, but I'm sure there's a proportion in involved. The number PHI or 1.6108 comes to mind. This "golden ratio" is said to epitomize beauty, and some go so far as to call it the Divine Proportion. It can be seen in nature in the way flower petals repeat, or the rate of the spiral in a snail's shell. This leads me to believe that music is fundamentally recursive as well. I believe that many fractal drawings are good graphical representations of how a piece of music could be arranged.
It seems I have a lot of ideas, but in no way are they connected. There doesn't seem to be much research done on this subject, which is a shame. What category would this fall under any way? Math? Music? It would probably be Statistics since you are estimating something large through very small means. I don't know, but it's fun to ramble like this.
